Travel Money Maximiser Discussion Area

s000zie

appologies if in wrong thread ...does anybody rate the post offices pre pay credit card ,you can have pound ,euros or dollars and top up any where, which usualy has a purchase fee of £10 but at the moment is free for euros and dollars

MarkyMarkD

wilroda wrote: »

As we are off on holiday in a few months i chatted to Nationwide today about opening a flexaccount and came away disappointed!
I was hoping to load the account with money for the holiday and take advantage of the free card use, then possibly in the future use the account more.
It would appear that you have to have it as your main account. i.e pay your salary into it in order to get the debit( visa) card. Otherwise you would just get a cashcard for use in the branch.
I am a little disappointed - I did explain that I was a new customer with them ( ex Portman) but they werent having it.

I don't know what your Nationwide branch are on about. We have recently opened a Flexaccount for exactly the same reason as you, and we have a VISA debit card each. We didn't come close to telling them the application was for a main account - and nor did they care. We opened it online.

luci

I use www.crowncurrencyexchange.co.uk for my US$. If you order it far enough in advance you get a rate much higher than even the Inerbank rate. At the moment they are offering $2.10 for delivery in March.

THIS is an interesting article of the actual costs using various bank cards and credit cards.

wideload

While this tool is very usefull, unfortunately rates for South African Rands is wildly inaccurate today
Best Rate posted from Tesco of 13.45 but actual rate offered is 13.06
Saga quoted 13.39 but actual rate 13.11

Fotoman_2

I note that a couple of your exchange rates are out of date. I went into Marks & Spencer the other day and got just over $2 to the pound whilst your site says it only gives $1.96. I have tried to access the M&S site via you link in your list for the past week now, to no avail.

Also watch out at the Post Office; on certain days, they will offer an extremely good rate for Euros and Dollars.

:T Great Site!

Fotoman

b0nuschaser

I just Used the Travel Money Maximiser to search for some canadian dollars. I rang the top three companies and all their rates were very different (2-3% worse) to those shown by the Maximiser. Does it actually work?

brownfrog

Could only find one thread on this subject when searching, so apologies if I've missed it and feel free to point me in the direction of the relevant threads.

Am shortly to go on a 2-week cruise, and am a bit reluctant to take lots of cash, but apparently it can be a bit difficult in some of the islands to get travellers cheques changed and the rate on the ship can be poor. What are the opinions on getting a pre-paid card to take cash out at an ATM? It seems that Western Union do one for 1.77%, and presumably there isn't a charge after that? If so, this seems to be better value than using a debit card (I do have a Nationwide CC, but not an account with a debit card, and my other accounts seem to add on a 2.75% loading charge in addition to the exchange rate commission). Would be grateful for opinions.

brownfrog

Having looked into this a bit more, I find that Western Union require you to be a US resident, so that's out. Checked on moneysupermarket.com, and it seems the lastminute.com one is the best value. £1 to buy the card, free to load on cash via the internet (important if you're travelling abroad), only £1.50 to withdraw cash from an ATM, and no 'foreign transaction' fees*.

This seems pretty good compared with the fees charged for traveller's cheques - I can't imagine we'd be taking much cash with us anyway, so 1 or 2 withdrawals at £1.50 each seems reasonable. I've also read (useful with the exchange rate for dollars as it is at the mo) that you can load up with currency when it's at a low rate, and then you won't need to buy it if the rate rises later.

*This is quite sneaky actually - 'foreign transaction' does not just mean purchases, folks, it applies to ATM transactions too. So you might get a card that's doesn't seem to charge much for an ATM transaction, but then you get an additional 2-2.75% whacked on top as well!

dzug

Not sure if I'm looking at the same thing, but lastminute.com seem to charge a fairly standard 2.75% foreign currency fee. So fairly normal then. Also you load it in sterling - not all of these cards have a load in $$ option.

BTW the 2.75% generally IS the exchange rate commission when using debit/credit cards - you are not charged twice.

lesley1960

luci wrote: »

I use www.crowncurrencyexchange.co.uk for my US$. If you order it far enough in advance you get a rate much higher than even the Inerbank rate. At the moment they are offering $2.10 for delivery in March.

THIS is an interesting article of the actual costs using various bank cards and credit cards.

Curious about this compnay , they offer guarented rates for up to next december , if you pay now , what protection do you have for your money , bearing in mind that when i credit checked them it readnt read well?